Epics of India

This portion of the Ramayana has less in the way of side stories, but the one that stood out to me was that of Maricha, assuming the form of a golden deer. Ravan is told of the beauty of Sita, Rama's wife, by his sister, Soorpanaka. She tells him how perfect she is so that he may go get her, thus opening up the door for her to woo Rama, whom she has fallen madly in love with. Ravana broods for a large amount of time and messes with a bunch of natural phenomenon like the seasons and the sun and moon in his tantrum. Finally, his sister comes back and convinces him that Sita already belongs to him  and he just needs to go get her. Ravanna persuades his uncle, Mareecha, to lure Rama away from Sita so that he may abduct her. Mareecha turns himself into a golden deer, and gets Sita's attention. She begs Rama to catch it for her. He runs off after it, but eventually realizes that it is a trick. As he kills Mareecha, Mareecha calls for help from Lakshmana and Sita in Rama's vo...

I'm not sure what I was expecting from the Ramayana, but I was pleasantly surprised. The story itself follows Rama through the adventures of his life. Along the way there are stories within the main story as Vishvamitra tells Rama tales of the land. From the top, Rama's father, Dasharatha, could not have children so he performed a weird ritual and got some rice that he then fed to his wives, and they bore him 4 sons. Rama was the first born, and is an incarnation of Vishnu. At some point in his life, presumably once he's grown to be a man, Vishvamitra appears to his father, and requests Rama accompany him as protection on some mission to perform a ritual to make the world a better place. Rama's brother, Lakshmana also comes along. The group sets out and gets to a desert, which Vishvamitra says was created by Thataka, who then shows up. Since she hates all living things, she attacks them, and Rama kills her. They keep going, and Vishvamitra tells ano...

To start my mini Wikipedia adventure, I decided to look into Rakshasas . Like I've talked about in other posts, these are cannibalistic creatures in Hindu mythology, similar to demons. Hindu Mythology  is based from a very large collection of stories in a number of famous texts. The texts keep stories from previous ones with little evolutions and twists as each story gets retold and others get added. These have a wide range of content from cosmic origins to godly battles and different ways of life. Hindu Mythology Hindu Cosmology  is the belief that the universe exists in a repeating cycle of creation and destruction. It is born, exists for a period of time before collapsing and immediately being born anew. It also talks about different realms in the universe, which exist around our own. Patala  are the subterranean. These would be the equivalent to the underworld from Western cultures. Interestingly enough, this region is apparently considered to be mor...

I watched a rather strange video on the feed, and I think I can say that I wasn't a fan. It was simply too odd for me to really enjoy. I can't pin down anything specific, but here's the video:    It is just an odd little video of  two different nonsense poems. They are tiny little stories that don't say much, and have no moral. This is to be expected from a nonsense poem I suppose. Additionally, I found this neat image: Role Playing This pretty much describes how I feel in leadership positions. People keep coming up to me with questions, so I have to pretend like I have some kind of idea what I'm doing.

So this past week was really the first taste of the semester. More so than the few days and easy lectures that come with the first week of the semester. It's only just setting in that this is my last semester of college ever. I don't plan on coming back for an advanced degree, so this is truly it. Needless to say, it's been a long trip, but I'm finally getting close to the end. As far as classes go, all but one of my classes seem pretty relaxing. I am a little tense about the expectations for my Aerospace Structures class, but I'm sure I can make that happen. My favorite class in engineering has to be my capstone. I'm loving this part of the semester because all of the parts we have ordered are coming in the mail so every single day is like Christmas; I am so ready to test some rocket nozzles. Outside of engineering, I like having this class to occupy me in my free time. It makes me feel productive when I can work in little bits on these blog posts. I had more...

So I've altered my original schedule a bit as I've gotten a feel for the schedules in my other classes. It appears that the majority of the time I have available for this class now falls on the weekend. As such, I will be attempting to devote about 2 hours on Tuesdays, an hour on Fridays, and about 5-6 hours on Sundays, as I kind of enjoy the extra credit options and want those built into my schedule. Tuesdays are my lightest days of the week as far as other classes go and Monday/Thursday are tied for heaviest. If I do the schedule in this new manner, I should have adequate time for everything. My Saturdays are entirely consumed with my capstone project so very little gets done in anything else on those days.  To keep all of this managed, I actually adopted a new app this past week and it seems pretty great: Todoist. It lets me check stuff off on a list and postpone deadlines on the fly, so I've used it to schedule my assignments for all my classes for the next coupl...

This is a fun assignment. Plain and simple, pick my favorite growth mindset cat pictures. The first of them being: Pure Truth Which is pretty great because it reflects my exact beliefs. You don't have to settle for what you start with. If you keep trying and keep learning, you can succeed at most anything. Up next is: Words to live by I was brought up believing that one of the most important things in life is to know when to ask questions. Plus, the cat and mouse match furs. And my third pick is: Key to Success This one because it's a reminder that every failure is just a door opening onto a new learning opportunity.

Following this handy dandy guide, I have added a very convenient weather widget to my blog. I usually like to look at the weather after I check this blog in the morning, so this is two birds with one stone. Now conveniently located at the  top of the blog is the widget.

Self criticism can be very helpful for improving yourself, but too much of a good thing isn't always the best for you. We should definitely listen for criticisms from others on the quality of what we do, but, according to the article:  Silence the Critical Voices in Your Head ,   by Sabina Nawaz, "we need five positive voices for every one negative voice." This means that for every negative comment we receive, we need five positive ones in order to maintain a good work quality and performance.  This article details tricks finding those positive voices that already exist in our lives and using them to their fullest potential. Personally, I think this is an incredibly helpful guide on maintaining that positive mindset. The other article,  6 Bad Mental Habits That Sabotage Your Success , has a similar focus on keeping a positive frame of mind while working. The six habits are: making excuses, catastrophizing the future, seeking audience approval, believing se...

Festivals Hindu culture is rife with festivals and celebrations. As someone who has always enjoyed going to festivals, this felt like a pretty natural way to start exploring Indian culture. I have noticed there are a very large number of festivals associated with different phases of the moon during different months in the Hindu calendar. There are also different New Year's celebrations for different calendars and for different parts of Indian culture. There are a large number of these events, and any one of them could be an excellent setting for a story. One of the most interesting I found was  Tulsi Pujan Diwas . It is celebrated on December 25th every year, and is celebrated to gain spiritual and health related benefits through the process of cultivating a Tulsi plant. Tulsi Plant Rakshasas A Rakshasa is a demon. There are a great many in Hindu mythology, and play many different roles. The biggest trait to note about Rakshasas, is that they are by and large man eate...

In days long past, there was a great and prosperous kingdom suddenly ravaged by drought and hardship. The once green fields had turned brown, and beasts prowled the countryside. Farmers fled from their herds, leaving for the safety of the keeps. For the beasts, oxen were tough to hunt, as they banded together in large groups for protection. A lone beast watched the largest herd and had a great idea, he would have the oxen voluntarily come with him alone. "Friends!" Exclaimed the beast as he boldly approached the herd. "Why are you staying here where the grass has died? There lies a lush meadow on the far side of the forest." "Come no further beast. We know of your kinds hunger." Proclaimed the largest of the bulls. "And why would we go through that forest; it holds the den of your brothers." "I have no hunger for oxen, your meat is too tough. I think only of your well being. As for my brothers, I know a path upon which they wont ...

Title:  The Cunning Crane and the Crab Author: W.H.D Rouse So the story I found most enjoyable was the Cunning Crane and the Crab. The gist of it is: Setting the scene: There is a small pool drying up in some kind of drought, and all the fish are miserable. Enter the antagonist: A crane was tired of working for his meals, and tricked the fish into climbing into his beak for a ride to a better pond. He ends up eating all the fish. Enter the protagonist: The crab is he last creature in the pond, and the crane tries to trick him as well. Climax/ Resolution:  This backfires on the crane, and the crab kills him after making him go to the better pond. This story started off fairly good with a detailed description of what was happening in the little pond. The setting for this story isn't just where did this happen?  It was also what were conditions like that made the decisions possible?  I like this because you can do more with it. It doesn't take much in the ...

Exploring the class resources, I immediately found the music . It's pretty great to listen to while writing these blog posts. I'll probably be putting it on anytime I do the readings as well, just to zone out with the perfect background noise. It's also interesting how there are Indian versions of English productions. After tuning in to the YouTube playlist, I started looking into the comic books . These seem pretty interesting if I ever get the time to go over and see the collection in the library. By far, I have spent the most time looking through the image collection . I really like how there are actual paintings, but also photos of sculptures included in the collection. It's a nice sampling of the different depictions of stories with different media. I know we will be looking into Rama and Ravana at some point, so I spent a bit of time looking through the images concerning them, and one that caught my eye is below. I'm looking forward to learning this...

Engineering in a nutshell One of the biggest issues I have run into in my college career is time management, and I'm pretty happy this is being addressed. The two articles I picked out are: 3 Steps to Recapture Time   , and 4 Questions to Help You Overcome Procrastination . I picked these two, as they are very common and difficult problems. The first article offers some really good advice on making sure you have enough time to not feel stressed out and rushed every day. The second is tips on reducing how much you procrastinate. I've had a couple years to work on my time management skills for college, but they can always be improved. This semester, I'm enrolled in 18 credit hours in addition to a couple extra-curricular leadership positions. This means that I'll need to stick to the schedule I have built for myself. The problem comes from the nature of some of my coursework. My capstone, for example, is project based, and there are deadlines, but these can wildl...

It makes sense to me that an online course should have a focus on making the most of digital resources. Of the technology tools, the only one I have not had direct experience using is website publishing. It's going to be pretty fun learning the best way to do that as I work on my project. As far as experience goes, I have become very comfortable with bookmarking, image editing, and graphic creation through various different situations; mostly creating designs for engineering projects. Actually, my entire capstone project is based out of a shared Google Drive folder so that our entire team has constant access to relevant materials. This online course environment is still new to me. All of my coursework has been in person in a classroom or a lab. However, that doesn't mean this is a bad thing. I am actually really enjoying how open the online environment for learning seems to be. Rather than plodding through a traditional course in which every step is very clearly defined, I f...

New Horizons Spacecraft My first impression of this course is good. It seems like I'm going to have a fair amount of fun typing up posts with coffee in hand. I really enjoy the way the course is structured entirely around these discussion posts, and it feels very open and creative. And ultimately, this class is going to be the most creative course I have ever taken, and also seems to be the most relaxed. So relaxed in fact, that I felt the need to include a picture of my all time favorite spacecraft. For the assignments, storytelling seems like it will be interesting, but difficult; I'm not the best storyteller. As far as extra credit goes, I find the idea of Wikipedia trails to be really neat. Its always fun to find new things on a wandering trail of thought like that. 

Although I had never heard of Carol Dweck before, I've heard about the growth mindset multiple times throughout my life, mostly through leadership seminars, and it is something that I can really get behind. If you don't have the willingness to grow, you never will. The growth mindset is an ambition to learn and aspire to greater things in life. Even those without a growth mindset can change, and start improving at any point in their life. It's not just something that effects children, it's just easier to influence at a younger age. Growth Mindset Personally, I first picked up on the growth mindset in middle school, but wasn't really made aware of it until well into high school after attending some seminars. I try to be as positive and growth oriented in all aspects of my life. Every moment is a learning opportunity of some kind, you just have to be ready for it. Since coming to OU, I've been able to increase my learning capability. It's not th...

As the title says, I am an aspiring rocket scientist. More precisely, I am Aerospace Engineering student. And that little descriptor about sums up my favorite things. I am in my final semester of college and absolutely cannot wait to graduate. I am more than ready to get into the work force and start building the future. To prepare for this future, I have done a lot of stuff in my college career. This includes, but is not limited to, building rockets, robots, and cleaning up asbestos. Don't worry, I'll explain more in a minute. Starting from the easiest thing on that list; robots. I am the vice-president of the Sooner Competitive Robotics here at OU. This means I get to be a technical adviser for each of the robotics teams and make that they have everything they need to succeed. I also get to help them when they mess up their robots, and cant get them to work right. Robots are great, but coding really kind of sucks, which is why I prefer to stick with my rockets an...

As this course gets rolling, one of the first steps is to look at the work of our predecessors. This means reading stories, so it's not as boring as it may seem at first. Looking through the story collection three in particular grabbed my eye. These each piqued my interest with their titles for entirely different reasons.  The first of the stories worked its way in because of my love for turtles. The story, Kurma and Karma: A Tale of Two Turtles , seems to be an interesting explanation of how karma works. The introduction does a great job of showing how complicated karma can be. It does not go into great detail on how the rest of the story will go, or really what will be covered.  This particular story is written with the tone of voice you imagine coming from Crush, the sea turtle from Finding Nemo . This gives it a sort of playful and easy-going undertone. In the same way, the story brings you along with it in a go with the flow  sort of attitude, and refrai...

For my favorite place, I picked somewhere I'd like to go. To live actually. When I think about my future, and where my career may lead me, I tend to go back to the same place again and again. The city of Seattle has a great history, and many great places to visit. Located in the State of Washington, the weather doesn't get absurdly hot. It does, however, rain. Some might see the rain as a problem, but I'm a big fan of the rain and cold, so Seattle would seem to be the whole package.  Seattle, Washington ( Wikimedia Commons ) What originally brought Seattle to my attention was it's proximity to the city of Redmond. Redmond may be a wholly unspectacular town, except that it is home to one of my favorite companies: Planetary Resources. As an aerospace engineer, my job prospects are rather limited, but, like everyone else, I too can have a dream job. And this is it. An asteroid mining company. So if I could live anywhere, it would be near Seattle, and I would b...

It's about time I get started on these epics. Really excited to see where this goes.